Martial Arts

Martial Arts is a strength based weapon proficiency that is used when fighting with no weapons equipped, or while wearing only Claws, Tonfas and/or Shields in your hands. Using a shield will incur the normal penalty to hit, but you may fight with multiple shields equipped without incurring any further penalties.

Unarmed damage begins at 2d5+1. For every 8 levels in Martial Arts, the damage die is upgraded by 1 and the damage bonus is increased by another +1. So at level 8 MA, damage is 2d6+2; level 16, 2d7+3; level 24, 2d8+4; level 32, 2d9+5; and so on and so forth.

As with normal weapon skills, Martial Arts also gives bonuses to hit% and damage multipler, albeit less. Bonuses are 1% to hit bonus per level and 0.05x damage multiplier per 10 levels, compared to 1.5% hit per level and 0.1x multiplier per 10 levels for other weapon skills.

This skill will improve the pierce component of unarmed attacks. The pierce percentual is (Martial Arts) / 5, with a minimum cap of 5% and a maximum cap of 50%. These are reached at 25 and 250 skill, respectively.

Note that the damage die size increases nigh-infinitely, and that stacks with the damage multipliers. You aren't likely to find too many weapons with damage like 2d30+26 damage, which is what you have at around 200 skill. This means that, while it doesn't look it on paper, the ultimate weapon in the game may well be a bare-fisted "monk" type of character. Since skills can go up to rank 2000, maximum damage is 2d255 + 251 damage... and that's before you even start on the multipliers.